Long wait for govt job in Pune

ANDBy 2 pm, the protest site in Pune is almost empty. An hour later, about 200 people had gathered, many clustered under the trees lining Pune’s SM Bridge. The crowd comes with the evening, as does the breeze. With the ebb and flow of full-time students, women and men in their 20s are starting to arrive. Rushikesh Dhode, 25, estimated that 500 to 700 students gathered on the bridge over the Mutha River at night.

Students sit and stand on one half of the bridge facing the stage where seven people are on hunger strike. Many women do not want to be photographed or quoted. “Our families don’t know we’re here,” says one, who did not want to be named.

Two or three people will say flatly: if a photo is published and they go on to take the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) entrance exams and reach the interview stage, the panel officer can recognize their face from the protest. That would be “very, very problematic,” the man says.

Aspirants for the entrance exams conducted by the MPSC, which are the gateway to government jobs, are here to protest against corruption in the recruitment process. They started protesting on October 1st. “We are demanding the resignation of MPSC chairman (Vivek Bhimanwar) on moral grounds, just as Nipo Nabam in Arunachal Pradesh resigned on moral grounds,” says Akshay Kamble, one of the organizers of the protest. He is referring to the chairman of the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission who resigned after the 2022 paper leak in the state. Kamble is one of the 15 organizers against whom the Pune police have filed first information reports citing laws related to unlawful assembly and public nuisance.

The protesters are also demanding that 70,000 vacancies be filled and that Maharashtra adopt a system like Rajasthan that allows applicants to take four exams for ₹100.

Every year MPSC conducts exams for jobs in various departments and at various levels in Maharashtra Government. In 2026 alone, three exam papers were leaked: two for 5,707 posts in Group C (clerk, peon, havildars in Home Guard or Maharashtra Police) and 109 posts for medical drug inspectors (group B). In Group B exam, all the three levels of exams were conducted and the results were announced when the students came to know about the paper leak.

Student protests are on the rise around the world: in France, students voice their disapproval of failing school systems; in Argentina, students demand the reversal of funding cuts to public universities; in Chile, students and teachers march against education budget cuts.

In India, there were protests in June and July over the paper leak, demanding the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, which did happen. This was followed by school children across the country, mostly in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, demanding better schools. In Maharashtra, in August this year, students from Scheduled Tribes applied for humane hostels.

Students protest against Maharashtra Public Service Commission Chairman Vivek Bhimanwar in Pune. | Photo credit: Emmanual Yogini

Shared room arithmetic

“Fifty study centers received a notice from the police through (social media platform) Telegram, telling them to ask students not to participate in the protest. They said it is now an anti-social activity as permission for the protests was obtained only for three days,” says Vivekananda Patil, one of the protesting students.

Once darkness falls, people let their guard down. Where protests across the country saw slogans and snide comments, here life is a ledger: rent and food bills, years spent studying for exams, what a family can, but more importantly, can’t afford. The anger in the street, they say, had two sources: the leaked paper and the calendar, which shifts every time the paper is leaked. This shifting exam calendar means more money to spend.

Students say the drought has reduced incomes in the villages that send them to Pune. It made a plate of food more expensive in the crowded streets where they live. The protest takes place where governance, politics and household economics meet.

Amol, 24, hails from Akola in Vidarbha. He came to Pune in 2022 and since then has lived as many of the aspirants here live: three to a room, with a budget that has to be redrawn every few months. When he arrived, he needed ₹8,000 to ₹9,000 a month for all his expenses. Now, he says, with inflation, it’s ₹11,000 to ₹12,000.

His mess fee increased from around ₹2,800 to around ₹3,200. “I’m studying MPSC full-time. I don’t have a part-time job,” she says, meaning the money has to come from home. Home is a railway family. His father, once a porter, was granted permanent residence in the railways in 2011 and now works as a track master (in the employment category of group D). Amol is the last of five children, he has four older sisters, all married.

In his first year, he took lessons from a teacher who charged him ₹50,000 for that year. Now he studies on his own, mostly because it’s just too much money to spend, but also because he now understands the pattern. He earned his degree through an online course while simultaneously studying for the MPSC exam but was unable to pass it. Now she says, “Mala kamit kami ek post kadhaychi aahe, angavar khaki vardi hech oni dheyya aahe (I want to get at least one post but my ultimate goal is to wear a uniform).” Amol avoids using his surname so he cannot be easily identified. He says it was his dream since childhood.

Many applicants consider jobs such as havaldar as a stepping stone to officer-level posts. Anyone with a degree can take the exam, but for many, entry to technical universities was out of the question because they couldn’t afford a science stream at junior level. Maharashtra’s school system takes students from class 10 to junior college for two years before they start their studies. These are the students who flock to Pune to study.

Night shifts and the library floor

Dhode’s story begins less. He lost his father when he was in fifth standard. His mother, a farmer, raised him alone and he worked alongside her on the farm. He says he did the rest of his schooling on his own. He was able to clear the MPSC exam in the final year of his studies and decided to come to Pune in 2022. He brought with him savings of ₹80,000 and moved into a one-room apartment with a kitchen with five other students. Six students, one room, one kitchen.

The savings lasted two years. After that, he had nothing in his hand. He stopped taking classes for MPSC and started working nights in a clothing store, cleaning and organizing supplies for ₹4,000 a month. He stays in the library at night and cleans it in exchange for shelter. “I am a child of a single mother and I feel that we will be financially stable only if I get a job in the civil service. Whatever the salary will be, at least it will be regular,” he says, also alluding to the rise in social status in his village.

His mother owns 3 acres of land in Maharashtra’s Latur district where she sows soybeans every kharif season. This year, with drought across the state, not much is expected. “I expect only about half the usual harvest,” he says.

A farmer’s daughter from Marathwada, Vaishnavi Jadhav came to Pune in 2024 and has been preparing for MPSC since then. She was among those who spoke on stage at the protest. “While preparing for the exam, the paper was leaking,” he says. “Marathwada is in trouble,” he says, contextualizing his concerns. “Transparent vetting is the only way for common people like us to enter the administration. If the process is flawed at the beginning, how will we be selected?” They fear for their future and the future of India.

“We are a country of youth,” he says. “If we have to protest like this, when will we study?” He appeals to the government to treat students as a liability, not a liability. “Whatever work you do, do it for the students,” he hopes from them.

Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar says all the demands of the students have been met, yet they continued their protest. “In their letter dated September 24, the students made four major demands. We facilitated a meeting with the Chief Minister on September 30 and all the demands put before us were fully met. The students gave us a letter that their planned agitation on October 2 was postponed. Suddenly, on October 1, a mob gathered and started marching to SM Joshi where they started the agitation.” He says the police issued a letter informing the students that the agitation was illegal, but they chose to ignore the instructions.

The matter subsequently reached the High Court. Kumar says the students’ counsel told the court that they would look for an alternative venue that would not cause traffic jams and that the agitation would remain within the legal framework. The police subsequently rejected their request to hold a protest at SM Joshi and suggested two alternative venues. “They continued to agitate in complete disregard of these legal instructions,” he says. “We didn’t want to set the law in motion, but a week passed and we had to. We saw several violations,” he says, adding that some people encouraged the students to continue the protests.

Politics at play

Extending his support to the agitating MPSC aspirants in Pune, Abhijeet Dipke, founder and convener of Cockroach Janta Party, demanded the removal of the chairman of the state recruiting body and demanded comprehensive reforms for fair examinations while urging students to stand firm.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut accused Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of “pretending to be deaf” to their demands and alleged that the government was trying to create division among the protesters instead of engaging in dialogue with their representatives. Initially, three factions emerged in the protest. Each of them had slightly different demands, but now there is mostly one faction on the ground. He warned that the unrest could intensify and spread across Maharashtra, making it difficult for the chief minister to leave his official residence.

Chief Minister Fadnavis suggested to Governor Jishnu Dev Varma that a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge be set up to probe the conduct of former and incumbent chairmen and members of the MPSC.

Rohit Pawar, an MLA from the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar), who is part of the opposition, tells the students, “Mr. Bhimanwar was a college friend of Mr. Devendra Fadnavis… He was directly promoted as an IAS officer on the recommendation of Devendra Fadnavis.” It suggests a conflict of interest. He also claims that when Bhimanwar was the Transport Commissioner, the corruption charges were ₹2,200 crore. “We are asking the government not to retain the person in the post while the investigation is ongoing.”

chinmay.r@thehindu.co.in